Taiwan’s National Cultural Award honors 3 for important contributions

Taipei, May 9 (CNA) The 43rd National Cultural Award was conferred Thursday upon three individuals for their excellent contributions to the preservation of cultural heritage sites, visual arts, and literature.

This year’s award recipients are architect/cultural and historical preservationist Fu Chao-ching (傅朝卿), photographer Juan I-jong (阮義忠), and late poet Lin Heng-tai (林亨泰).

Prime Minister Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁), who presented the award, praised Fu for incorporating international perspectives into local cultural and historic preservation work and for his efforts to showcase Taiwan’s cultural heritage sites in the international arena.

In his acceptance speech, Fu vowed to continue bringing Taiwan’s rich cultural heritage to the world in the face of Chinese oppression.

Meanwhile, Juan has been an “eye on Taiwan,” documenting the country’s culture and capturing precious moments since the 1980s, Chen said.

Some of his pieces are featured in the City of Paris Museum of Modern Art, with others in a range of well-known international institutions, Chen added.

In his remarks, Juan reflected on his career in photography, sharing his anecdotes and reflections on the craft. It requires “the right person being in the right place at the right time” to create memorable photography, he said.

Lin was an influential modern poet who had been active in Taiwan since the Japanese colonial era and continued writing during Taiwan’s martial law era, Chen said.

Chen added that Lin’s work defied a trend of employing Western styles in Chinese-language poetry and instead emphasized the land and people of Taiwan.

Lin’s daughter Nikky Lin (林巾力) accepted the award on behalf of her father, who died last year.

Nikky Lin spoke about her father’s literary style, noting that his early works in Japanese and his post-World War II pieces documented two important eras in Taiwanese history.

The National Cultural Award, launched in 1980, is the highest honor bestowed by the Taiwan government on individuals for outstanding contributions in the cultural field, the Ministry of Culture said in a statement on Thursday.